Energy and the Complexity of International Order

Thomas Oatley

Global Environmental Politics, 2021, vol. 21, issue 4, 20-41

Abstract: This article explores the role of states and industrial policy in shaping the historical coevolution of energy and international order. I explore how states, by narrowly self-interested pecuniary goals, the desire for geopolitical advantage, and concerns about the political ramifications of domestic economic structure, use industrial policy to encourage the development of energy-intensive transportation and agricultural systems. Over time, increasingly energy-intensive systems allowed an increasingly complex international order to develop, one characterized by significant differentiation and specialization organized over a geographically expansive area. This contemporary complex order is dependent on fossil fuels. I argue that states retain geopolitical and domestic political incentives to use green industrial policy to develop the technologies needed to transition away from this fossil fuel dependence, but industrial policy today faces greater challenges than it did in the past.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00637
Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:21:y:2021:i:4:p:20-41

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://mitpressjour ... rnal/?issn=1526-3800

Access Statistics for this article

Global Environmental Politics is currently edited by Steven Bernstein, Matthew Hoffmann and Erika Weinthal

More articles in Global Environmental Politics from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().